On My Radar is a new weekly meme here at Fictional Fantasy – The idea is to showcase a few books that have sparked your interest in the last week. These can be books you have seen in store or from visiting other  Bloggers. For more details head to the On My Radar info page!

Here are a few books that are on my radar this week:

Entwined by Heather Dixon
Release Date: March 2011
Publisher: HarperTeen

Azalea is trapped. Just when she should feel that everything is before her . . . beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing . . . it’s taken away. All of it.
The Keeper understands. He’s trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. And so he extends an invitation.
Every night, Azalea and her eleven sisters may step through the enchanted passage in their room to dance in his silver forest.
But there is a cost.
The Keeper likes to keep things.
Azalea may not realize how tangled she is in his web until it is too late.

Vampire Crush by A.M. Robinson
Release Date: December 28, 2010
Publisher: HarperTeen

First, six mysteriously pale new students show up at Sophie McGee’s high school. Then, Sophie’s childhood nemesis James reappears, still displaying a knack for making Sophie’s blood boil. When Sophie finds out that James has a connection to the new students, she decides to investigate…never expecting her life will quickly begin to resemble a campy horror movie, complete with budding crushes and bloodthirsty villains.

Fallen Angel by Heather Terrell
Release Date: December 28, 2010
Publisher: HarperCollins

The first book in a dark, edgy new angel series about a girl who finds herself forced to choose sides in the battle between fallen angels, even if that means going against the boy she loves.
When Ellie Faneuil first sees Michael Chase she feels an instantaneous connection. But she does not realize how much they have in common, including the ability fly and to see what others are thinking – not to mention a taste for blood. Reveling in their new powers and their growing feelings for each other, Ellie and Michael are determined to uncover what they are, and how they got this way.. together.
But the truth has repercussions neither could have imagined. Soon they find themselves center stage in an ancient conflict between fallen angels that threatens to destroy everything they love. And it is no longer clear whether Ellie and Michael will choose the same side.
In this electrifying novel Heather Terrell spins a gripping tale of soul-mates, supernatural powers and a truth that will change Ellie and Michael‘s world forever.

So what’s on your radar this week?

Enter your details into Mr Linky below, so we can all come by your blog and please don’t forget to link back to Fictional Fantasy :)

Author’s Website

Book Summary: How many lives do you need to live before you find someone worth dying for?
In the aftermath of what happened at Sword & Cross, Luce has been hidden away by her cursed angelic boyfriend, Daniel, in a new school filled with Nephilim, the offspring of fallen angels and humans. Daniel promises she will be safe here, protected from those who would kill her. At the school Luce discovers what the Shadows that have followed her all her life mean – and how to manipulate them to see into her other lives. Yet the more Luce learns about herself, the more she realizes that the past is her only key to unlocking her future … and that Daniel hasn’t told her everything. What if his version of the past isn’t actually the way things happened … what if Luce was really meant to be with someone else?

My Thoughts – Please don’t continue reading if you haven’t read Fallen yet, there may be some spoiler!

I just finished reading Torment and I loved it! I could not put it down!

Torment is the second book in Lauren Kate’s fallen angel series and it picks up right where Fallen left off.
Now that Luce knows about the existence of fallen angels and of her past lives with Daniel, she and Daniel should finally be able to have that chance to be together but Daniel is still as illusive and mysterious as ever, insisting on secrecy for her own protection. He sends her off to another school which will ‘shield’ her from others that have learnt of her mortality. This is where we are introduced to Shelby and Miles. Shelby is Luce’s new roommate, she’s sarcastic, and a little rough at times but her and Luce become friends anyway and then there is Miles. Miles is cute and sweet and thoughtful and the guy that makes Luce consider the possibility that Daniel and Luce are not destined to be together after all.

I was glad to see that some of the old characters (from Fallen) were carried forward in this book, they helped to cement the two books together and also helped to answer some of the questions from the previous book.

Lauren gives us more details of Luce’s past lives as well as delving into angel mythology a little more in this book and many of the questions I had after reading fallen have been answered.

I loved the way Lauren ending Torment, such a cliffhanger and I am quite impatient for the next book now. If you liked Fallen, you are going to love Torment!

My Rating: (out of 5)

Get your copy from:

Fishpond
QBD
The Book Depository (free international shipping)
Amazon

More Books in the Series:

1. Fallen
3. Passion (2011)

Trailer:

About the Author: The author of several pseudonymous novels for Alloy’s Inside Girl series, as well as the forthcoming The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove, Lauren Kate grew up in Dallas, Texas. She received her Bachelor’s degree in the deep South at Emory University, then went to New York for a brief stint in publishing, before enrolling in the University of California, Davis’s Master of Arts Creative Writing program. She is finishing up her degree at UC Davis, where she also teaches. She lives and writes from an old farm house in Winters, California.

Have you read this book? What did you think? Leave your review or a comment below telling us what you thought :)

Today Dymocks Books hosted a Q&A with Lauren Kate author of Fallen and soon to be released Torment where fans got to ask her questions.

She was lovely enough to answer a couple of my questions which were:

Q “Is there a minor character from Fallen that you would like to explore more in future books?” and her answer was:

A “Arriane springs to mind first. She’s always been my favorite. I’ve written a couple of short pieces about her–scenes between her and Roland, scenes before Luce arrived at Sword and Cross. What’s fun about working on the series is that I get to go back not just to Luce and Daniel, but to all of them in each new book.”

Q “Have you always been interested in angels or was it a new interest before you wrote Fallen?”

A “It’s a newish interest. I was taking a course in graduate school about reading the bible as literature and I starting circling around all these angel anecdotes. It became a sort of obsession and by now, I think I’m hooked.”

Here is a quick run down of some interesting parts of the chat:

- Lauren is working with a production company called Mayhem and hopefully Disney will make the movie!

- Lauren is currently working on the third book in the series. It’s called PASSION and it’s actually a prequel which goes back in time across many of Luce’s lives.

- So far there are going to be four books in the series. Torment comes out next month, Passion will be out in June/July of next year, and then the forth book, Rapture, will complete the series, possibly in January 2012.

- Lauren reads alot of young adult books, she loved Wicked Lovely and Shiver, Hunger Games.

- She recommends reading The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff when it comes out.

- She is wanting to visit Australia and says possibly in 2011

- Cam is based loosely on her husband

Lauren Kate’s sequel to the bestselling Fallen hits stores September 28th, 2010, here’s the book trailer:

You can find out more about Lauren and her books at her website!